Acosta VM, Auzinsh M, Gawlik W, Grisins P, Higbie JM, Jackson Kimball DF, Krzemien L, Ledbetter MP, Pustelny S, Rochester SM, Yashchuk VV, Budker D. Production and detection of atomic hexadecapole at Earth's magnetic field.
Opt Express 2008;
16:11423-11430. [PMID:
18648462 DOI:
10.1364/oe.16.011423]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2008] [Accepted: 05/15/2008] [Indexed: 05/26/2023]
Abstract
Optical magnetometers measure magnetic fields with extremely high precision and without cryogenics. However, at geomagnetic fields, important for applications from landmine removal to archaeology, they suffer from nonlinear Zeeman splitting, leading to systematic dependence on sensor orientation. We present experimental results on a method of eliminating this systematic error, using the hexadecapole atomic polarization moment. In particular, we demonstrate selective production of the atomic hexadecapole moment at Earth's magnetic field and verify its immunity to nonlinear Zeeman splitting. This technique promises to eliminate directional errors in all-optical atomic magnetometers, potentially improving their measurement accuracy by several orders of magnitude.
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